Girl Talk
Under the name Girl Talk, Pittsburgh native Greg Gillis established himself in the mid-2000s as a master of mash-ups, party raps, and sample-based indie dance music, which were released on the Illegal Art label. While working as a biomedical research engineer by day, Gillis' musical career graduated from early experimental fare to ambitious projects like 2006's Night Ripper, whose wild party jams were constructed with over 300 different sampled songs. Also known for his manic, intense live performances, he managed two more full-length releases on Illegal Art before the label went on hiatus in 2012. Gillis' own recorded output slowed down with the 2014 Freeway collaboration Broken Ankles, coming out on his own label, and a handful of singles followed over the next few years while he focused more on production.
At first a teenage punk performer inspired by Japanese noise acts like Merzbow and the Boredoms, Gillis made the surprisingly slight conceptual shift into copyright-flouting sample work around the turn of the millennium. Hooking up with the proudly anti-copyright collective Illegal Art, a shadowy label vaguely connected to the pioneering samplers Negativland, Gillis made debut with 2002's Secret Diary, an artful and largely conceptual release that turned the recognizable snippets into brief blasts of glitchy noise. 2004's Unstoppable was far more direct, using fewer and longer samples to create more recognizable mash-ups in the manner of early KLF singles, making Girl Talk suddenly the most pop-oriented and accessible project on the Illegal Art roster. After a pair of vinyl EPs, 2004's Stop Cleveland Hate and 2006's Bone Hard Zaggin', Gillis' third album as Girl Talk, 2006's Night Ripper, split the difference between his two previous full-length efforts, with the playfully recognizable samples of the second and the more complex structures of the first. The album's popularity also helped build his audience and he followed it up with 2008's Feed the Animals, again relying mostly on samples and his own instrumentation. 2010's All Day would prove to be the last Girl Talk release to appear on Illegal Art who went on an indefinate hiatus in 2012. Over the next few years, Gillis continued to tour, and in 2014 hooked up with Philly rapper, Freeway, to release the collaborative EP, Broken Ankles. He appeared that same year at Coachella with guests like Busta Rhymes and Juicy J rapping during his set. Shifting his focus toward production, he worked on tracks for Freeway, Wiz Taylor, and Smoke DZA, while releasing a couple of Girl Talk collaborations in the 2018 track, "Trouble in Paradise" with Erick the Architect and 2019's "No Problem" with Young Nudy.
© Stewart Mason /TiVo
Discography
17 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Full Court Press
Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Taylor Gang Ent. - GT Recordings LLC - Asylum on 8 Apr 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Full Court Press
Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Taylor Gang Ent. - GT Recordings LLC - Asylum on 8 Apr 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Talkin' Jazz
Jazz - Released by Ponca Jazz Records on 26 Mar 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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How The Story Goes
Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Taylor Gang Ent. - GT Recordings LLC - Asylum on 23 Mar 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
It Feels Like This
Jazz - Released by Stay-Rio Music on 1 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ain’t No Fun
Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Taylor Gang Ent. - GT Recordings LLC - Asylum on 6 Apr 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Trouble in Paradise
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by GT Music on 30 May 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Put You On
Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Taylor Gang Ent. - GT Recordings LLC - Asylum on 9 Mar 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Eurostep
Girl Talk, Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T.
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by C&G records on 19 Sep 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Nickey Loves To Drive
Jazz - Released by Stay-Rio Music on 3 Dec 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Kick the Ball
Electronic - Released by Stay-Rio Music on 3 Oct 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lover With An Attitude
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by The Special Messengers' DELIGHT Entertainment on 5 Apr 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lover With An Attitude (sped up)
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by The Special Messengers' DELIGHT Entertainment on 5 Apr 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo